


I'll Leave the Light On

by Mums_the_Word



Category: White Collar
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 15:19:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3295181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mums_the_Word/pseuds/Mums_the_Word
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Series Finale, we were left to speculate exactly what Neal's feelings were, and if he and Peter would ever meet again. This story offers one possible scenario.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Leave the Light On

 

     Grief is a visceral thing—you feel it deep down in your very core. Like a bird of prey with sharp talons, it flays you open, leaving you naked, exposed and vulnerable. It’s as if you’ve been punched hard in the solar plexus, lost all of your air, and you must struggle just to breathe again. Platitudes do nothing to diminish it; psychobabble fails to assuage it; belief in a higher power, fate, or karma does not bring peace. There is nothing to assist you as you make your way down a long road of darkness that seems to have no end. You cannot simply program a GPS to bring you out on the other side, far away from this catastrophic tragedy.

     People say that they experience heartache—a nebulous term for sorrow. Peter Burke now understands what the term really means because there is an aching pain in his chest where his heart still beats day after day, the way that Neal’s never will again. Peter knows that he needs to move on with his life—a life with so much hopeful promise. There is his wife, his yet-to-be-born son, and his job. But all of these things seem to shimmer merely on the periphery of his existence right now. Getting though each day—each twenty-four hours of being—is a supreme struggle. Because “time” has become a warped dimension for him, divided quite simply into two eras—“Neal,” and “After Neal.”

     Peter goes through the motions—he’s good at that. He says all the right things, his facial expressions are appropriate to match whatever situation arises, and he fulfills his never-ending duties admirably. He feels reasonably certain that he is pulling it off, even if it is without the panache and the aplomb that his partner would have displayed. But what else can he do, because the world has not stopped spinning. However, after a year of running in place, his limited biosphere took on yet another dimension—“Enlightenment.”

     Peter has studied this new phenomenon from every angle, as is an archeologist’s compulsive habit. With a fortitude born out of almost a decade of proximity, he thinks that he understands Neal’s motives for what Peter has come to dub “The Ultimate Heist.” Neal stole himself away from everyone with what he most likely thought were the best of intensions. The impulsive, infuriating conman probably truly believed that he had caused enough problems in Peter’s life, and had decided to remove himself from the equation once and for all. How could he not have realized the emotional devastation that he would leave behind in the wake of his actions? Sometimes Peter was extremely angry with his absent antagonist, and, at other times, he longed to wrap his arms around him in an affectionate embrace.

     Some nights, after he had rocked his little son into a quiet slumber, Peter wondered at the things that Neal might now be feeling, almost a year later. Was he reveling in finally being free from his FBI oppressors with their duplicitous agenda? Was that the ultimate impetus behind the sham? Or did he truly reason that he was protecting those whom he loved from a network of murderous thieves who would seek revenge through nefarious channels? Was the wondrous Parisian playground fulfilling the dreams of his artist’s soul? Was he using his inspired mastery to create extraordinary works of art? Did he miss those that he had left behind? You could not just jettison feelings like flotsam from your life, feelings that had been imprinted upon your consciousness. Was he truly happy now?

     Yes, Peter continued to wonder if Neal was content and fulfilled in his new incarnation. Happiness, Peter reasoned, wasn’t a place or a time. Happiness was a state of being, of feeling safe while comfortably immersed in a sense of comradery and belonging. He had that once, and Peter reasoned that Neal simply could not ignore what had previously been his New York life.

     Having convinced himself of that, Peter awaited Neal’s return. A vintage bottle of way-too-expensive French Bordeaux lay on its side in a kitchen cabinet collecting a bit of dust. He remembered that it was really important to keep the old cork moist so that it wouldn’t fragment when a corkscrew was inserted. He had appropriated one of Byron’s old-fashioned fedoras from Neal’s loft. It had found a home on the top shelf of the coat closet in the foyer. Every night the wrought-iron porch lantern remained on, a welcoming beacon in the dark night. Each morning he turned it off on his way out the door as he went to work. Over the months, he replaced bulb after bulb.

     In the quiet, intimate moments of their evenings, Elizabeth would give Peter that soft, rueful little smile.

     “Peter, he’s not coming back. It would be far too dangerous for him, and you really shouldn’t want him to risk it. I know you care about him and miss him terribly; so do I. But you need to content yourself with simply being happy for him. Now he has a chance at a new beginning that is most likely very exciting, a beginning that he deserves. His years spent in New York were a series of restraint, heartache, and loss after loss. Now he is truly free and you have to let go!”

     Peter listened to the wise, well-intentioned words from his beloved wife as he held her in an affectionate embrace. She was speaking from her heart, he knew, but the porch light still remained on each evening as dusk fell outside of the Burke home.

 

**********

 

     Across a vast ocean, an elderly gentleman, tapping a sturdy walking stick, made his way slowly down a Parisian boulevard in the darkening shadows of the evening. This was a truly beautiful promenade, here beside the Seine, especially at night when the elegant street lamps cast their shimmering reflections onto the placid water. The man taking his constitutional had followed this exact path, accompanied by his wife, every afternoon for almost fifty years. It did not matter the season or the climate, they strolled, hand in hand, like the lovers that they were.

     His cherished companion always saw beauty in everything. With her poetic soul, she described trees iced over in winter as slender ladies dressed in diamonds, and foliage tossed by spring winds as coquettish dancing figures from the Moulin Rouge. Ever the adoring husband, he listened and smiled, and was content to revel in her enthusiastic élan. Now he walked the street alone, since the ravages of time had taken his precious Jeanne-Marie away. After her passing, he chose the night hours to walk, when the narrow cobblestone paths were his and his alone. In this solitude, he could lose himself in memories.

     Although well into his seventh decade of life, the night stroller was still astute, discerning, and keen-eyed. When not immersed in reverie, he especially loved to study the ages-old architecture of the buildings along this street. What stories they could tell, having been witness to history going back as far as the French Revolution. The edifices were majestically tall, with beautiful mullioned windows and wrought-iron balconies, and stood like patient sentinels overlooking the river. One particular home always captured his attention because, night after night, without fail, it was the only one that had a candle flickering in a second story window. If the old man squinted, he could make out the outline of a tall, slender, man standing at that window, gazing out upon the quiet tableau as if in a trance. He could never discern the features of this face in the trembling of the candlelight—just an impression of a pale countenance and dark hair. Every night, the candle burned, and every night this phantom stood watch. The vigil continued for months on end.

     Perhaps the old man had acquired some of his wife’s fanciful nature after all of their years together, because he now suddenly found himself imagining possible scenarios to explain the solitary figure. Had he lost someone dear and was suffering the melancholy of one who is now alone? Was he not seeing what was really outside his window, but rather a kaleidoscope of comforting moments from the past? Did he experience those sharp pangs of hollowness and isolation, and sometimes sense the presence of a loved one who was no longer there? Was there a deep yearning for what used to be familiar and calming?

     Eventually, the sauntering gentleman would chide himself for being a senile, decrepit, old fool who was projecting his own sad emotions onto a stranger in a window. Not everyone’s world was a study in angst! Perhaps this man simply had insomnia, and was debating the merits of either a drink of cognac or a sleeping pill.

     However, on subsequent nights, the hypnotic dance of the candlelight just continued to foster more speculation on his part. Jeanne-Marie would be disheartened that the husband she left behind saw only despair rather than hope, he thought with a measure of guilt. So, although he lacked his dead wife’s romantic heart, he became determined to steer his fantasies in a more benevolent direction. Now he envisioned that lonely light in the window as a beacon that would eventually guide a much-anticipated loved one to a place where they were patiently awaited. The light was not marking the passage of empty nights; it wasn’t there to keep demons of the past at bay. It was a testament to anticipation and promise. As long as it lit the path, there was faith that one would find their way.

     One evening in early Spring, as the trees were about to burst forth with the embryos of new foliage, and the air was crisp after a cleansing April shower, the old man made his slow passage down the wet street. As had become his habit as he neared the middle of the row of homes on his left, he cast his gaze upward to look for the now familiar candlelight. However, this night his soft footfalls came to an abrupt halt. He stood stock still, perplexed and confused, because there was no longer a candle in evidence on the windowsill! Mon Dieu! What had happened? How could this be, he worried?

     As the unfamiliar spectacle continued to confound him, he was just a bit relieved to note that there was some soft illumination in the room behind the window, which was now covered by a gauzy, lace curtain. The old gentleman stared without shame or remorse. After a few heartbeats, he was almost positive that he could make out the moving images of two people in that room in the dim light filtered by the fabric. At first, it felt wrong, somehow. Things were not as they should be. But then it came to him, and a small smile slowly tugged at the corners of his lips.

     “Oh, Mon Amie,” he quietly whispered to his lost soulmate, “I think this story finally has a happy ending. The one whom he has awaited these last many months has finally arrived.”

     And as the sole witness to the saga turned away and once more began to make his way down the boulevard, he again fondly addressed his wife. “Oui, Cherie, as always, you were the wise one, having faith that things will work out as they should.”

The End

                                                                       

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you squint, this story could be considered slash, if that is how you viewed Peter and Neal's relationship.


End file.
